Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3), Lan Chan [best way to read an ebook .TXT] 📗

was only when her gaze rested on me that she paused. My fists were balled so hard I could feel my nails cutting into my palms. She looked me up and down. Her hand went to her mouth. Tears suddenly filled her eyes. No, I thought. She was going to have another breakdown. But then she opened her arms.

“Look how big you’ve grown,” Nanna said. I screamed and ran to her. I could barely hear or see anything because I was sobbing so hard. She held me for as long as I cried, just like she had when I was a kid. Then she wiped my tears with her sleeve and shook my shoulder.

“Don’t you feel better now?” she said. “Come on, big girl. I’m not sure what’s happened, but you can tell me all about it.”

They were the exact words she’d said to me a hundred times while I was growing. Back when I’d come home from school after having an argument with my latest bully. Nanna turned around the room. “You know,” she said. “I don’t have the faintest idea how to get back to our house.”

I burst out laughing. It was the first time I remembered laughing like that in forever. That light feeling lasted about ten seconds. Nanna got a really good look at Kai.

“Malachi,” she said. He approached us and took her hand. Right. So she clearly hadn’t lost her recent memory. She hugged him and whispered in his ear. It was loud enough that I could hear without having supernatural powers. “We need to have a discussion about what your intentions are with my Alessia.”

The stunned look on his face as she pulled away had me grinning. “I’m not sure what you’re smiling about, young lady,” Nanna said. I knew then we were both in trouble. Basil took the opportunity to introduce himself. He guided Nanna away with his pitch about the mansion and how he wanted her to move in there. Nora interjected.

“Umm…” Kai said.

I nudged him. “How do you think Nanna would get along with Jacqueline?” I asked him. He sighed and scrubbed at his face with the palm of his hand.

“Don’t remind me. I’m surrounded by incorrigible women.” He was smiling, but I noticed how dark the smudges under his eyes were. He could withstand an endless battering from the supernatural world, but the soul barrier had almost killed him. Raphael saw it too. “Come, Malachi,” Raphael said. “You need rest.”

“I don’t need babysitting,” Kai snapped.

Raphael simply stood there in all his glory. Kai surrendered easily. I had to remember to ask Raphael how he did that. Matilda approached me when they were gone. She cleared her throat. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Astrid escorted us to the cells where Matilda and I repeated the same spell to unbind Giselle. The other woman reacted completely differently than Nanna. As soon as she was released, her body sprang into a crouch as though she was ready for a fight.

Matilda smirked at her. “Always showing off,” she said.

Giselle blinked. “Mattie?”

“At least we know her mind is intact.”

Two of the Nephilim guards helped Matilda return Giselle to the human world. She was no longer a prisoner, but the Council had yet to come up with a suitable punishment. When they were gone, I slumped against the wall.

“Are you okay?”Astrid asked.

I blew out a breath. “It’s been a long semester,” I said.

She nodded. “Indeed. I think you’ve well and truly earned the break.”

If only she knew. I had a feeling I would be spending all of my time stopping the Terran students and the supernaturals from killing each other. Story of my life really.

42

Nanna and I glared at each other over the dining table. We each had a dessert spoon in our right hands. In front of me was a carton of plain vanilla ice cream. My theory was that vanilla would be the easiest to ingest quickly. Hers was the rainbow flavour that I had discovered was really just caramel with additional food colouring. She refused to believe it. Funny how the mind works.

Odette paced beside us with a metronome. For some reason she thought that was a substitute for a stopwatch. “On your mark, get set…” I gripped the spoon and narrowed my eyes. Nanna’s nostrils flared. “Go!” Odette shouted.

I dug into the ice cream and scooped out as much as I could. My mouth could barely open wide enough but I forced it in nonetheless. The cold numbed the inside of my mouth in seconds. I chomped down. My strategy had always been to get as much into my mouth as possible before the inevitable brain freeze. It hit me like a sledgehammer. I groaned and dropped the spoon into carton. You would think my grandmother would have some sympathy for my pain. Instead, she sat opposite me demurely eating spoonful after spoonful.

“Times up!” Odette called. She peered into each carton.

It was a landslide win for Nanna. I was still clutching at my head. Nanna shook hers at me.

“Really, Lex,” she said. “Eighteen years and you still can’t come up with a new strategy?”

I slammed me fist gently on the table. “I swear one day it’s going to work.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She closed the lid of her carton. “I guess I’ll be choosing what we do tonight.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Another trip to Morgana?”

She flashed me a wide grin. I moaned. She was head over heels in love with the Fae city. It was my own fault for showing her in the first place. While Basil had managed to convince her to stay at the mansion, she spent much of her time exploring in between counselling session in Seraphina. So far, she hadn’t shown any signs of a bad reaction.

Odette sat down on my right and picked up the spoon. She popped it into her mouth and smiled when I made a sound of disgust. Despite living on the streets, I was now suddenly obsessed